Not a fan of blinking snowman earrings?

Yeah, me neither. Which leaves me in a hard spot. I have a little bit of elf blood in me. I'm sure of it because as soon as the Thanksgiving tupperware's put in the fridge I've got the goofiest Christmas grin on my face. But I just can't bring myself to wear blinking snowman earrings for the next month.

So, I had to take things into my own hands. Here's what I do to be Christmassy, without looking like a complete goofball. These Sari Earrings always do it for me. I just love these beads anyway. Since they're a solid color, you can pull them off later in the year too and not look too silly.

I like this lampwork pendant too. I really like the silk cord it's hanging from. You've got to see it in person to see how cool it is. The pictures just don't do it justice.

There - now you can be festive without needing batteries to do it.

Oh momma - these turned out cool!

Ok, fresh off the work bench and I just had to share. How cool are these two pieces? The solder gods were smiling on me for these projects. These are both custom orders. The first one is a montana agate, from, you guessed it, Montana (the banks of the Yellowstone River to be exact). And the second is an Owyhee Picture Jasper from Eastern Oregon. If you want to see the before, these are #2 and #14 on my rock dork page. I can fit in two more custom orders for Christmas, so if this strikes your fancy. Email me quick!

Ok, today I'm a white chocolate goddess!

Mmmm...death by white chocolate today. How's this for divinity: white chocolate irish cream truffle dipped in white chocolate. Yep, I ended up licking the bowl on that one too. These ones actually turned out pretty so I didn't even have to wrap them in foil this time.

Ok, if you're looking for a book to turn you into a chocolate snob, this is the one to do it. There's more that you ever wanted to know about tempering chocolate, and some really cool things to do with it once you've got it tempered (which is the HARDEST thing to do! I think you need to be an industrial chemist to figure that one out).

So, all I've got left now are my osbcene turtles (there is nothing better on the planet than homemade caramel! It's worth the hours and hours of stirring). And a secret for Judy - since I know she's reading I'm not going to spill the beans.

So, did you make out your wishlist to Santa yet?

I Guess if Starbucks is Doing It....

Good lord! When did Starbucks become the herald for the holiday season? It's like it wasn't official around the country until the red cups and gingerbread lattes got pulled out of the back cupboard.

Me? For some reason I keep thinking it's still April. It really can't be November, can it? Thanksgiving's not really next week, right?

Well, gingerbread latte in hand, I put together a new little contest together that should be fun. Tell Santa what you want for Christmas >>

Happy Holidays, I guess. Oh, and twenty bucks says my Christmas cards are going out as Happy New Years cards (happy valentines?) Oh goody.

Stop! no Go!

Perusing my favorite treehugger site again, and I came across this cool little article

Drachten, a small Dutch city with around 50,000 residents has removed almost all of its traffic lights. Major intersections have been converted to roundabouts, smaller intersections just let drivers work make decisions on their own. Basically, it's anarchy. Anarchy that has completely eliminated dangerous crashes and road fatalities and created a surge in bicycle and pedestrian traffic. Read the rest here...

How neat is that? Although, I bet that wouldn't work if you got too much bigger - can you imagine like Paris without any stop lights? I wonder what Portland would be like...

I am a chocolate goddess!!!

No, not in the Ray Nagin sort of way... But I made my first batch of candy of the season. Oh momma! I almost don't want to give them out. I found a truffle recipe called "Death by Chocolate". Now, if there's any way to go out, going by chocolate is the tops. Anyway, the filling in these things is just unreal. I ended up with more filling than I needed...and you know, you just can't let something like this go to waste...so I ended up squirting the remains of my parchment bag of obscenely creamy chocolate directly into my mouth. MMMMMMMM. I felt like I was a little kid with a whipped cream can. Well...actually I think I'm more of a chocolate princess than a chocolate goddess - I still have to work on the presentation - they're still a little swirly on the outside instead of perfectly shiny like I want them. But that's just an excuse to practice more and have more leftovers. Dave gets all excited too 'cause he gets to eat all the broken ones. And Devera...well, you've seen the photos.

I found a good quote...

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

Ok, that's a little better

It's like a kaliedascope for those of you who visit frequently. I think I'll settle down now. I don't promise anything though. At least I'm back to purple and green again.

Dammit - I pressed another button again.

Aack! When am I going to learn. Hold tight while I figure out how to turn this back.

2 Lines I Really Like

2 of them caught my eye (and ear today one was on the radio) We're all just recycled stardust (cool concept - and true if you really think about it). The people who are in control are the people who come out. (Don't just sit there - go out and vote - for ANYTHING!) Ok, there are my random thoughts for today.

More spiders please

Yep, that's certainly my kid. No that's not halloween face paint. It's cupcake frosting. We got halloweeney cupcakes for Dave's birthday on Monday. Devera's had a big black spider in frosting on top. She literally sucked the spider off the top (yes, you could hear slurping sounds and everything). When she was done with the frosting, not having eaten any of the actual cupcake, she looked up at me and said, "More spiders, please." There's an equally entertaining and very technicolor story on the other side of this event. But I won't gross you out. Oh yeah, and after I posted that I'd never have another reese's again, I had 2 more after dinner. I earned them, dammit!

Toby does pennance - goes to aerobics class

As pennance for eating reese's peanut butter cups for breakfast, lunch and dinner last night (note - not "with" breakfast, etc. but FOR breakfast). I decided to go to my first ever aerobics class. Those of you that know me are laughing already. I learned a whole lot of things tonight. In order to be proficient (or even not look like a complete idiot) you need the following skills:

1. Need to know your left from your right (I'm still working on that one - I have to make an L shape with my left hand for verification - hard to do when you're bouncing up and down)
2. Need to have just a little bit of rhythm (SP??) - yeah, don't have that.
3. Need to kinda be able to dance - I got nothin there.
4. Need to be kinda perky - I wonder if they make surly aerobics? I'd probably be good at that one!

I'm just really glad my spot wasn't anywhere close to a mirror. I would have run out crying. I know I looked like Devera when she does the hokey pokey, except that I'm not 2. But then I thought - she throws herself into the hokey pokey with wild abandon. I guess I could just laugh my way through it - it was really comical. I completely gave up on the arms halfway through after I almost hit the poor woman next to me a couple of times. At least I was entertainment for somebody - the little 70 year old ladies were smiling and winking at me. Oh yeah - this was the EASY aerobics class. I will never NEVER eat reeses for breakfast lunch and dinner again!